A distant relation laid claim to the dwelling, with the land attached to it; but from the awful scenes in the former, which we have related, it became uninhabited, and was soon an entire ruin; finally even without a wreck. THE DEVIL’S WALL. “Jeremiah, read those directions and intimations once more; they contain no less than a challenge to my valour. Truly his Black Majesty seems to think that he can toss about the ball of earth for his amusement; and that there is not a tailor who would venture to ‘measure him.’ Ah! Nick, give me a trial.” Thus spoke Gideon Chiselwig, tailor, in Ormskirk. Unlike the most of his brethren belonging to that honourable profession, he could boast of six feet of perpendicular matter; but conceiving that even that height was too low a tabernacle for his giant soul, he fixed to the one extremity a long red nightcap, whilst he made the other move on tiptoe, much to the mirth of the quizzing old maids, for which that town is noted. He was never seen with that upper garment, commonly called a coat; unless to display one of fashionable cut, which he had just finished; and the absence of this did not take from Gideon’s stature. Some conjectured that he knew this; others had seen Mrs. Gideon, at home, arrayed in what, evidently, had once been a coat; and they jocosely remarked, that she had altogether monopolized the use of her husband’s apparel, for now they had seen her with the coat, and Gideon himself had confessed that she wore the breeches.--He had a vest, but the pockets were only visited by his hands; silver and gold they had never weighed; so that to all intents and purposes--the wife wore the vest also. Nature, however, had denied him her average allowance of breadth and thickness, so much so, that in a tour to remarkable places, during the honey-moon, having entered a museum in the metropolis, the blushing bride was asked by the keeper, what was the price she fixed upon the piece of anatomy which she brought. Gideon, did, indeed, convince the questioner of his mistake, by a powerful and conclusive argument directed against his head: still people will suspect, even in the face of ample evidence; and the report had been afloat, that there was something altogether strange about him. This only served to give a more singular character to the tailor, and nothing short of the marvellous in adventure could win his attention and occupy his thoughts.